Expansions of Unfolded Stars
by Jirubee
Summary: A first person perspective of Kagome's unresolved feelings for Inuyasha, years after the well has sealed. Alt canon. Drabble.


Out of all of the places we had been before, or in the futuristic throes of my world, we stood atop a hill. A hill as plain as dirt laying beneath the shoes I discarded somewhere along the path.

I had ached to feel the cool grass entwined around my toes, easing away the stinging heat of the summer.

I'd thought nothing of it, of course. I was young then. I was blind to the concrete of adulthood weighing like cinders around my ankles. Despite such a perilous journey, standing on that crest of earth made me realize that I was in love.

I knew I had always cared. I'd never once assumed that I didn't. From the moment I laid eyes upon him, that man held my heart. He was like one of those damaged books you'd see in the library.

All torn, mottled by its long dormant life on its grave-like shelf...

When I opened it, I found the depth and erosion that that slumber had bestowed upon it. He, the damned and treacherous demon, was easily read and equally as addictive.

It was after I stood, staring at a flickering star some million miles away, that I saw his gleaming eyes peering at me in that awkward boyish way.

His mouth wanted to crease into a smile, but his worried lines slithered down his chin instead. I never knew how soft and youthful his features were until then. I had always taken quick glances to quell my own curious fancy.

To say that I was nervous was understated, and downright cruel. When he was near me I felt like my limbs were numb, burning with sleeplessness of goose flesh and blush eating my skin.

I'd closed my eyes countless times to press him into the blackness. InuYasha, however, could never be erased. How could you go on knowing that he was breathing and you were centuries away?

No one in my world could have ever compared to him. No one on this earth could have ever been what he was, and is to me.

And, in that line of thinking, my heart ached when his claws grazed my hands, my hair, any part of me in passing - accidentally or deliberately. Each time it pulled me from my imagination to this assumed reality.

I remember how badly I wanted to touch him. That want, I don't believe, was ever satiated. He stood tall only a few inches away from me that night. It was daunting.

Whenever the wind caught his ghostly tendrils, I felt like running my fingers through the strands to see if he would notice. Despite how close we had grown as individuals, I grew into him like the roots of the Goshinboku grew into the earth and he leaned towards the light of a different window, still planted in the same soil.

For being so young and so ungrateful, I was more of a woman in that moment, and all of the moments that lead me to him, than I am now.

He was statuesque, beautiful... I was an awkward, gangly school girl with no meat on her bones. I wrung my hands together, washing away that tiny beading of sweat on my palms. He made me feel like I was more - everyone did.

Harrowing praise and comparisons to the image of me was almost unbearable. How could a insignificant girl, complaining about boys and mathematics, have been given such an opportunity?

I'm thankful for that, regardless of the bitter uprooting of what I had grown accustomed. The hanyou was an absolution, and I was merely a breath. I came and went just as easily as I watched him draw in a yawn.

Somewhere in that tiny body, I'd found the nerve, the sheer urgency to lean into the folds of his haori and hold on. It was surprising that he held steadfast in place, nary flinching in response.

Instead, as the low hum of the sea in the distance sang its tiding, he brushed a knuckle across my forehead and sighed. My heart plummeted.

My heart still does.

That was the first tender touch of many. They were taunting my will. I was no harlot, or any other word in my vocabulary to make me so. I was a girl that was becoming a woman.

Maybe I held on too long to that one gesture, to him. But, as I've said before...

To know that someone like him exists is like the life, the magic, the innocence of every good thing you could encounter.

Despite the darkness in our hearts, it was always easily overcome. Now, I'm sitting here at my old desk, staring at the scar where my Prince laid in wait.

I could look at these photos, but I'd only keep him waiting. I'm a forty year old woman, waiting on that dream.

I suppose that losing him, in the vast expansion of time, only leads me into another journey - moving on.


End file.
